Four years and $200,000 later, Dave Bryan’s fight is over.
The Riverhurst, Sask., farmer has been waging a legal war against the Canadian Wheat Board, trying to get the courts to rule that the board’s export monopoly is unconstitutional.
But that campaign has ended in defeat.
The Supreme Court of Canada last week refused to grant Bryan leave to appeal his 1998 conviction for illegally selling grain to the United States. That means he must now pay a $9,000 fine for hauling 4,000 bushels of wheat to the U.S. without an export licence in 1996 and 1997.
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In an interview from his farm in south-central Saskatchewan, Bryan said he was disappointed with the outcome.
“There was a shred of hope we could win, but now there is none,” he said. “We’re at the end of the road.”
But he also claimed a moral victory, saying his case has prompted many people to join the fight against the CWB monopoly.
“We might not have won in the Supreme Court, but we’ve won the argument in the court of public opinion,” he said. “In that way it was a worthwhile exercise, but it’s definitely disappointing not to get the monopoly overturned.”
Bryan’s case was based on the argument that grain grown by farmers is their property and since property rights fall under provincial jurisdiction in the constitution, the federal CWB Act should not apply.
That argument was rejected by a Court of Queen’s Bench judge following a nine-day trial in Winnipeg in February 1998. The judge said the CWB rules were a necessary part of the federal government’s authority to regulate trade and commerce.
That verdict was upheld a year ago by the Manitoba Court of Appeal, which led to the appeal to the Supreme Court.
Financial support
Bryan’s legal bills, which he estimated at $200,000, were paid by donations from farmers and by the
National Citizen’s Coalition, an advo-cacy group that opposes the wheat board’s monopoly powers.
Coalition president Stephen Harper called last week’s decision “a sad day for freedom,” adding that the case “highlighted the injustice of the wheat monopoly and the lack of property rights protection in Canada.”
Asked if he plans to continue campaigning against the CWB, Bryan said he will take some time to think things over and consider his next step.
“There are several options out there for me, but none of them are legal right now,” he said, adding that people may not have heard the last of him yet. “You never know what might happen.”
